How to Turn Off “Enable Editing” in Microsoft Office 2010

Are you working in Microsoft Word 2010? If so, how many times have you tried to jump into a document and start making some changes and nothing happens? Oh, that’s right….. You forgot to click on that annoying, little, yellow button on the top of the document. You idiot!

“With any piece of complex software, over time new file parsing exploits against it may be found. The older Office binary file formats had been susceptible to these types of attacks. Over the past years hackers have discovered ways to manipulate Office binary files so that when they are opened and parsed, they cause their own code embedded within the file to run. To address these binary file parsing attacks in Office 2007, several new XML based file formats were introduced.”

If you are generally savvy enough to not open documents from suspicious sources and enjoy an occasional walk on the wild side, well then here is a quick “how-to” on just turning the darn thing off permanently:

1. Open any Office 2010 application (Ex: Word or Excel).
2. Click on Office or File button, and select Options.
3. Under Options select “Trust Center” in the left pane.
4. Click on Trust Center Settings in the right pane.
5. Click on the Protected View in the left pane of “Trust Center” window.
6. Check/Uncheck Protected Mode Options below to fit your needs

If you want to take advantage of this security feature in a customized way, you can actually go back to step 6 and set specific Trusted Publishers, Locations and Documents right from this Window.
Unfortunately, you need to apply these setting to each Microsoft Office application individually.

Hello! After I open the attachment and click Enable Editing… where does the file actually go?

MLN August 1st

Thank you! This is such an annoying feature and wastes so much of my time. Thanks for teaching me how to get rid of it!

Joseph December 15th

Annoying as hell, and no, it does not have “many valid” reasons. It’s asinine.

Eschm January 18th

This is great. Thank You. I wrote a Macro in Excel that opens a template Word document. It was causing the Macro to error out bcause I did not know how to disable this piece. Great Post!

pharoahs January 30th

Thanks this was driving me crazy for sometime…..now I am relieved.

SBK April 23rd

FAB! This helps tremendously! That function is ANNOYING.

Zee May 23rd

The feature is so annoying. Didn’t know it had an actual important reason to be there. Thanks for the tip! Awesome post! :)

Shalini May 30th

THANK you KEVIN!!!

SL May 30th

Kevin that’s amazing!

Thank you……………………………..

Al May 30th

Thank you for sharing this. This has been annoying me for months. I’ve managed all these years without this function, I tink I can continue without it!!!

Squiz June 25th

Yes – it is nice & easy to remove in Word, Excel, & PowerPoint….

But how can I avoid the bloody thing in Access 2010????

Low June 26th

Thanks. Got your tip from Google Search.

FairSpeaker September 23rd

Yes. I found this padlock is truly annoying wasted lots of time. Cannot believe Microsoft let such a garbage present user with new features of 2010 Word. I want my money returned and reverse to previous version.

FairSpeaker September 23rd

Word 2010 has lots of new features. But cannot force the user to learn if all they want is type a few words and save the document. Need to default to basic setting without annoying the user. I don’t want to spent time to make a tool first if I want to cut a tree.

Alex September 24th

Which button to use to reverse the editing mistake in Microsoft word starter. It is very difficult to do certian simple things

tweety bird October 4th

I don’t know why my screen is greyed-out, cannot check off the protected view. Is it because my company has put restriction there so employees cannot make changes? Does anyone know?

Miami November 29th

Thank you for your great explanation as to why the new feature exists in the first place. And then for your step-by-step how to eliminate it.

TK0503 January 2nd

Thank you!!!!!

Chadz January 8th

Thank heavens….

sandeep January 18th

thanx you solve my problem

Craig January 24th

Whilst this feature is no doubt annoying (and the tip to disable it is most welcome) I think the statement ‘wastes so much of my time’ is a tad exaggerated.

Michael January 26th

Finally got rid of this annoying thing. The office products are awesome but they would have been much better if Microsoft didn’t develop them.

VD February 4th

Thanks a ton…… dear. Now i am got rid of this third class / use less feature from Microsoft

Long February 8th

thank you, it’s really useful

renitha February 14th

2010: I have complex macros in my documents. How do I enable them? The “Embedded Buttons” to open other data tabs are not operational.

shabbar March 12th

Is there a way to do this on Excel 2007? It tried to look for it but couldn’t find it.
I hope someone can help me with this.

thanks

Dheeraj March 14th

any shortcut key for that??

Chris March 21st

Can someone please tell me why mine is greyed out for? I saw someone previously asked them same question, I don’t see a response to it. I tried to eidt the registry to turn this thing off, based on another article I found, that didn’t help either.

Cinny March 26th

If the options are greyed out AND you are on a company network, it is evidence that your company has decided to limit your ability to change such settings for the programs you use.

The solution is all well and good, but what if it doesn’t work? I’ve done this several times (as network administrator) and still can’t make it go away on some machines in the network. What next?

armin April 27th

hi. thanks for your guideline but my word 2010 crash when I press enable editing. and after doing above and disabling protection, the file cannot be open and word crash and close. please advice. appreciate if you email me the solution. thanks a lot.

mahesh May 12th

thanq……:)

AS June 26th

THANK YOU!!! Bless you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wininz July 1st

THANK YOU!!!! My boss was either gonna kill me or throw their computer across the office because of this one feature. Seriously annoying!

macelius July 18th

THANK YOU!!!

namlun August 9th

thanks your posts

Turtle51 August 15th

I am on a network and our Office 2010 is web-based. I tried the method above but every time I open an excel 2010 spreadsheet with a link I still have to enable editing. Would like to know how to get it to go away.

maxine August 29th

I’m on Windows 7/Office 10. I tried the method above, and it still doesn’t work. Would *love* a fix for this annoying ‘feature’

Jennifer September 25th

I can’t thank you enough for making me laugh so hard while at work today. Your “enjoy an occasional walk on the wild side” comment was hilarious. Oh, and thanks for tip. Turns out I’m adventurous like that. :)

Can’t tell you “Thank You” enough, Kevin! I have complete trust in my Norton software to handle all these types of issues. MSO has not only become an annoying controller, but has made simple to advanced tools more difficult to find and use. I’d been an advanced MSO user and trainer for 16 years. Since switching careers back in 2004 (to Web Marketing), I’m so glad I’m not teaching it – because I’d have too many negative ideas that would pass on to the users. Grumbling is not a good asset for a trainer!! LOL Anyway, thankfully, I can find professional MSO software help from people like you. You are definitely value-added!

Mike October 23rd

My son is totally blind and only uses keyboard commands
He relies on audible from his screen reader software.
This tip will help him

S. H. Redder November 20th

I was on a sailing trip with my family off the coast of Africa. Suddenly, our boat was boarded by Somali pirates and we were taken hostage. The only way our captors would let us go is if we could disable enable editing on their PCs. I managed to Google this article and quickly implement the changes. I can’t thank you enough Kevin for saving my family’s life.

Rahul Payle December 9th

Any Shortcut Key For the Enabled or Select directly to editing ?
Any Shortcut Key for Protected view enabled directly by keyboard ?
Shortcut Keys???????????

salman December 11th

Thank you!

Pramod.K.S February 10th

Thank You

Arun Jaswal February 13th

thanks for giving your perfect solition…

Arun Jaswal February 13th

thanks for providing your solution

Harsha T S February 21st

Worked for me.., thanks a lot ;)

Stefan February 26th

Thanks a lot :)

Duffy March 3rd

I got rid of the enable window but I’m still being asked “would you like to open or save?” every time I open an Excel attachment from Outlook. There’s an ‘ask this every time’ box checked but I can’t uncheck it. I went to the Outlook trust center to work with attachment options but the security setting is ‘default’. How to I turn ALL of these things off? I work a lot in Excel and I receive invoices created in Excel every month from a trusted source. I just want to open, print and close in quick succession as I get 15-20 of these attachments at the beginning of each month. Thanks…

Pegi March 5th

None of my settings were enabled yet I still get “enable editing” message. What can I do? I have Word 2010.

About Author

Kevin E

Vice-President of Sales, has been with Thrive since 2004 and has worked with hundreds of small and mid-sized businesses solving technology challenges. Kevin holds a degree in Marketing from the University of Massachusetts (Boston). Kevin also has VSP 4 and ITIL Foundation V.3 certifications.